Treating Anxiety & Depression with CBD

Unfortunately for some, the holiday season can be difficult. Loneliness, loss, a tight budget that keeps you from giving the gifts you want to… all contribute to anxiety and depression. 

Health Central recently reached out to our team for our opinion on using CBD to treat anxiety and depression. You can read the article below, but we wanted to share a few techniques to help manage anxiety and depression here as well. 

  • Get an adequate amount of good sleep- Restful sleep promotes healing, regulates blood sugar, and is even needed for weight loss. Weight gain is often a source of anxiety for many people during the holidays.

 

  • Avoid too much sugar- Sugar significantly contributes to inflammatory conditions, is very addictive, and wreaks havoc on all of our physiological systems, greatly affecting our mood.

 

  • Do something fun that gets your heart pumping- Of course, check with your physician first, but exercise is one of the best-known anti-depressants. Anandamide, also known as “the bliss molecule,” a cannabinoid our body produces, is responsible for the “runner’ high” that makes us feel oh-so-good after an effective workout.

 

And lastly, if you are becoming too overwhelmed with anxiety or depression, please contact your health-care provider. We are also happy to provide you with local mental health resources anytime. Please call 888-810-WELL (9355).

Read the Health Central article here

No longer a “Bag of Bones”

Cheyann Shaw was a vibrant and adventurous fitness social media influencer.  That changed at 23 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 serous ovarian cancer.  Her chemotherapy regimen began in August of 2016 and thus began a series of nightmares – multiple rounds of chemo, surgeries, a temporary ileostomy bag, and an allergy to dairy. Her weight plummeted from 130 to 97 lbs, from muscle to a skeletal bag of bones. 

 

Her family and friends watched her deterioration until her parents finally broached the topic of giving medical cannabis a chance. She was initially opposed to the idea, having always led the life of an athlete and considering her body a temple.  Oddly enough her father, a previously anti-cannabis man, had seen a friend battling with back cancer have positive results by treating his own condition with medical cannabis.  Cheyann began with 1 gram each of Rick Simpson oil and CBD, distributed in pill form.  She found that the aggressive chemo she was subjected to next – seven rounds in all – was far more tolerable.  She began to see that her appetite was back and was starting to crave food again, even eating dinner and desert like a “normal” person.

 

The most difficult of the chemo side effects she had experienced previously was feeling both exhausted and wide awake simultaneously.  To combat the side effects of chemo, doctors had begun injecting her with a steroid to “help” but those would keep her awake, sometimes up to 72 hours at a time.  Both her physical and mental health were suffering and again, she started looking into how medical cannabis might help with the mental exhaustion.  She found that THC was a godsend for insomnia and began to sleep and wake up refreshed.  Not only that, but the anxiety was dissipating with the use of THC.

 

Today, Cheyann says that she’s a firm believer that medical cannabis helped her win the fight with her cancer.  She says, “Many people are closed-minded when it comes to THC and at one point, I was one of those people.  But if you keep an open mind and do just a little research, you’ll be surprised at what you might find.”    

Often times I hear patients tell me they have treated their lower abdominal issues with cannabis suppositories, either vaginally or rectally. I’ve been told they work for menstrual cramps and to treat the symptoms of Crohn’s. Click below to check out the research on cannabis suppositories and if they really work.

Do Cannabis Suppositories work?

Parents Fight for Access to Safe, Quality Medicine

Dispensary Tour - Cannabis Education - Kansas City, MO

Oftentimes we learn about patients in the media who are struggling from having legal access to safe medicine.  While every patient story is heart-wrenching, it’s the ones about children that seem to stick with us and sometimes serve up the impetus for policy change.  Charlie Hughes is one such patient story that both touches and infuriates readers who learn of the battle his family is waging for access to medicine.

 

In the UK, parents of toddler Charlie Hughes are fighting the National Health Service (NHS) and seeking a policy change that could radically alter his quality of life.  Charlies, 3, has a rare form of epilepsy called West Syndrome, known best for its frequent seizures – up to 120 per day – and historically treated with benzodiazepines which have side effects ranging from lethargic to dazed and not effective at reducing either the seizures nor their impact. 

 

Under the NHS protocols, he has been prescribed seven different prescriptions for anti-epilepsy medication, yet he was still experiencing up to 100 seizures a day.  Charlie’s parents, Allison and Matt claim that with full extract cannabis oil, the number of seizures he experiences in the course of a day is dramatically decreased.  The family pays hundreds of pounds per month to source full extract cannabis oil privately because clinicians at NHS have refused to prescribe Dutch-made oils (which meet the European Medicines Agency guidelines for Good Manufacturing Practice).  

 

Matt said of his son’s improvement since taking cannabis: “Charlie is happier, more alert, far more vocal, constantly babbling and takes an interest in his toys. He can feed himself and loves nothing more than some rough and tumble with me. He’s come alive again.

“No one knows definitively what effect all those anti-epileptic drugs in combination with each other have on the development of the brain. If he wasn’t asleep or completely zonked out, he was just seizing. Cannabis has massively improved his general wellbeing.”

The decision in the Hughes’ case against the NHS could have profound impact on cannabis oil as medicine and the ability for parents like the Hughes to have access to what is clearly making a difference in their son’s quality of life.

Visit the link below to learn more about the Realm of Caring. Not only are they actively involved in making cannabis accessible to all who could benefit, but they provide a financial assistance program as well. 

Realm of Caring.org